Gallery: The World's 30 Top-Earning Musicians 2018
View gallery
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 31: BTS performs during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan ... [+]
It seems like whatever they do, BTS makes history in some fashion. Whether it’s racking up a record-breaking number of views on YouTube with a new music video, reaching No. 1 once again on the Billboard 200 with a just-released album or collecting more trophies than any other name in K-pop, the septet is unstoppable, and this past weekend, they broke precedent once again by snatching not one, but two of the most prestigious honors in the Korean music industry.
At the thirty-fourth Golden Disc Awards, held throughout the weekend that just passed, BTS was named the champion in both Daesangs, which are the top prizes. The group’s full-length Map of the Soul: Persona claimed the album daesang (similar to an album of the year category) and that project’s lead single “Boy With Luv” took home the digital song daesang (like single of the year).
2020 marks the first time one musical outfit has come out on top in both verticals. Impressively, while no act has ever landed both honors at any point in their careers, BTS did what seemed nearly impossible in the same year.
This latest iteration of the Golden Disc Awards marked the band’s third win in the album daesang (and third in a row) but their first in the digital song daesang. BTS has been nominated for the latter prize before, but they’ve never gone home the champions.
It’s worth mentioning that while the Golden Disc Awards have been handing out the album daesang since the first ceremony in 1986, the digital song daesang wasn’t included in the mix until 2006, understandably.
While nobody has ever managed what BTS just did at the 2020 Golden Disc Awards, their clean sweep isn’t totally surprising. If anyone was going to earn this bit of history, they were clearly the ones to do so, and this was the year. Map of the Soul: Persona became the bestselling full-length in South Korean history in just one month, and it was a smash success in territories all around the world. Similarly, “Boy With Luv” wasted no time establishing itself as one of the highest-charting K-pop songs ever in dozens of countries, and it broke records left and right when it was first unveiled.